Venting frustrations by reflecting and eventually writing about them can help us confront our problems. Taking effective actions against them can provide a solution towards making our life healthy and meaningful.

My mum had to deal with most of the tantrum that my brother and I threw as kids (and still do sometime), and I admire her for all that she put up with. Here are some of the frustrations she mentioned while parenting us:

Raising two kids almost single handedly since my father was too busy and mostly touring for his work

Having no time to attend to her self needs

No time to indulge in her hobbies

Having almost 0 social life

Having to decide on the menu so we would eat without complaining- which she thought was the hardest

Having a hard time to decide who to side when we both fought

Finding time amidst all this to help us with our home works including subjects that she had been out of touch with for a while

Feeling extremely sad when her good actions were mistaken and misunderstood by us

Being blamed for not understanding her kids well enough

Too much interference from her in-laws and neighbors on how she should raise her kids

Spending most time in the car driving us back and forth from school, and to all our extracurricular classes

Always trying to maintain the delicate balance between trying to respect our privacy and at the same time trying to stay in the loop about our activities.

I am sure there is more to add to the list. I would like to hear from all the parents who have either faced or are facing parenting issues, how did you beat the distress?

As teenagers we often tend to feel the whole world and mostly our parents are against us, and they are our worst enemies.

Teens, do you identify yourself with the following?

Do your parents refrain you from hanging out with friends until late at night, or, refuse to pay the money for buying you a new car?

Are you strictly prohibited from attending parties, going to discos or pubs?

Are you discouraged from having a steady relationship – do your parents say this is the wrong age to experiment with relations, deal with it later in your life?

Do your parents always disapprove your dresses and your style?

Do your parents tell you, no increment in pocket money unless you get straight As in all the courses this semester?

To be honest I have faced most of the above issues as a teenager. I wondered, why is it all that I suggest start with a No, why do my parents fail to understand me?

As a teenager the most dramatic statements I have heard my parents make are:

How could you do this to us?

How can you say this to me?

We have done everything to make you happy, why are you being so selfish?

I guess the most important thing that helped me survive my teens is the bonding of understanding, trust, respect, and faith my parents constantly tried to build with me. Even when I was extremely hard to manage they would stay calm and patient, and deal with my idiosyncrasies. They were never too extreme with any rules and punishment. They were available to talk to me and listen to my concerns whenever I needed them. Looking back I feel lucky having survived my “terrible teens” and blessed for having my parents around!

Newly weds or even people who have been married for a while often find it hard to live up to the expectations of their in laws. Do you think you have always put your best foot forward but still failed to impress your in laws? Are your holidays becoming stressful and the relationship with your in laws adding strain to your married life? Do you have a dominating mother in law who over sees your accommodating nature and criticizes all that you do for the family? Does your mother-in-law interfere too much into your personal life?

My family has suffered from some parent-in-law issues. It is a tough issue to resolve, unless one side tries to make peace with it and live with it. Have you faced in-law issues? How have you coped with it?

Although you have a more demanding job than your husband, you are still expected to come home from work and cook for the entire family, and be the first to wake up in the morning to make the cuppa!

Do you ever feel your husband is taking you for granted simply because you do not have a job?

Doing the grocery, deciding the menu for the week (mind you it cannot be the same for lunch and dinner), packing your lunch box, doing the laundry, cleaning up the mess in the house, decorating the house, buying furniture- MUST be taken care of solely by the wife.

The kid has to be picked up early from the day care, or there is a parent’s teacher meeting at your son’s school today, or your daughter has to be taken to her ballet class (she has been arriving late for the last couple of weeks, so the teacher has warned her to come on time)- well the husband is busy with meetings and cannot take a leave from work, the wife has to take care of the entire situation (somehow, magically, even if this means cloning herself!)

For all the husbands,

Do you feel you have a nagging wife and no matter what you do for her you still fail to live up to her expectations?

She keeps reminding you of your duties towards your family, she dislikes the way you treat her parents

She is always talking about things in the wrong time

She is almost driving you crazy with her utterly melodramatic statements for the slightest difficulties in life

She says you do not spend enough time with her after you return home from work

She holds you responsible for all the fights, blames you and make you say sorry every time, and never apologize herself?

I am sure the list is endless and one can write a novel on this! Do share your views and opinions on spousal frustration!

How did you feel since the birth of your sibling? Well, umm.. I guess you wanted to have a brother or a sister to play with so you were excited about it at first, but then somehow things changed – you had to grow up overnight and behave like a guardian even while you were barely 3/4 years old. You had to take care of your sibling and bear all his torture and tantrum. It actually got much worse than you expected when you both grew up. He turned out to be the smart ass and was light years ahead of you in every subject. He even solved all the math and physics problems you struggled with. He is still doing much better in life, while you are waiting for your first break!

Well I have a smarter sibling too! There were times when I felt, I wish I was as smart as him but, mostly I am proud of him and his achievements. What is frustrating for me is that I have still not figured out the reason for this intellectual disparity between us. I am still struggling to understand Mendel’s principle of inheritance of genes!

Here is what my brother once told me and it left me dumbstruck! He said he felt frustrated to be too smart! He felt like an alien since almost everyone around him was too slow, he would easily irritate people around him since they thought he never made the effort of explaining his answers, he was also mistaken as being insolent and arrogant since he failed to bring everyone to the same page every time he discussed something!

So I feel frustration is a bug that bites almost every person on this planet. If you have been bitten by the bug do tell us about it, we are eager to hear from you!

Smarter cousin frustration

If not for a smarter sibling it could be a smarter cousin of yours who you are always compared with. Why does it take you 30 m to solve this math problem when your cousin can solve it in 5 m? Why do you end up getting 50/100 in all your science subjects when your cousin has a near perfect score? Why can you not study for 8 h a day like your cousin instead of taking 1 h break between every 30 min? Why don’t you take some lessons on dressing and wearing the right make up from your cousin? Why could you not find yourself a girl friend as smart as your cousin’s? Why, why, why?

Did you ever face this while growing up, and are you still facing it? Well then this is the right place to share it with us and have a good laugh over it!